Elly Sienkiewicz, Author

The Elly Sienkiewicz Appliqué Academy

In Spring of 2014, it was announced that ‘TESAA,’ the much-loved annual appliqué school gathering, was officially closed. First of the international conferences devoted to Baltimore and appliqué’s art, it had begun in Annapolis, Maryland, moved to Lewes, Delaware, and thence to Williamsburg, Virginia over the course of two decades. Each setting, like the quilts this art school lauded, was historic—and beautiful. A certain portion of its more than 200 “Academicians” and faculty stayed the same, while others changed. We all came to study the Baltimores, appliqué, and what the nineteenth century called, “The Ornamental Arts.” This recent ending has turned out to be a beginning. For within this year, several new conferences studying these ornamental arts have opened around the country. What more propitious bell could possibly have rung for us, we who join together to commemorate the Baltimore Album Revival?